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There are some questions that never seem to really crop up until something (like a crises of toilet paper) force them to rise to the top of your pile of Deep Thoughts.
One of those, at least for me, was why haven’t Americans really embraced the idea of the bidet? I mean. Everyone likes to feel clean and fresh down there. Wiping involves a certain amount of risk to your hands. You have to continuously buy toilet paper, and half the time a child or a dog unrolls it down the hallway.
I mean, really? A bidet, which washes your booty for you without you needing to use your hands, is a pretty genius invention…so why haven’t Americans been installing them in their homes for all of these years?
Is it because we think they’re too fancy? Too French? We don’t really know how to pronounce it? We didn’t think of it first? Let’s take a look!
You probably know that in other places in the world, it’s difficult to find a bathroom that doesn’t contain a bidet. Asia, Europe, and South America all embraced the technology decades ago and haven’t looked back.
The very first bidet was said to have been constructed in the early 1700s in France. It gets its name from the French word for a “cob horse,” which should bring to mind how you’re supposed to “ride” the contraption (for lack of a better word; I’m sure the French have one).
One of the earliest models was installed in the room of a French royal soon after its inception, and soon began to spread not only through France, but through Europe and beyond, too. Bidets are estimated to proliferate in around 80% of the bathrooms in France, Italy, Portugal, Argentina, Venezuela, many Middle Eastern countries and throughout East Asia.
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In 2007, NYU professor Harvey Molotch wrote a piece for the New York Times, in which he mused on why Americans never caught the wave. One theory was (aha!) because it was French, and therefore snubbed by the English, and Americans followed suit. Another is that many Americans first glimpsed bidets during the World Wars, often in brothers, and somehow connected them in their minds.
Americans, as we know, love nothing more than wrinkling our noses at immortality that we’re definitely participating in behind closed doors.
His third thought was that U.S. bathrooms were historically often small and built to contain only the necessities – but that, of course, has changed in the last decade or two.
Interestingly, one of the most successful bidet models in the world was invented in the 1960s by an American, Arnold Cohen. When he began marketing it at home, though, 99% of customers had never seen or even heard of a bidet, and he ended up having much bigger success abroad, especially in Japan.
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While bidet proponents cite cleanliness comfort, and environmental sustainability as reasons to jump on the bandwagon, we all know what Americans are like when they dig in their heels on a thing.
That said, companies like Kohler are looking to invest in ideas that incorporate appliances that clean your under-bits into existing toilet designs, hoping to tempt high-end buyers and people who spend way too much money remodeling their bathrooms.
So you know, in fifty years or so, the rest of us schleps might be able to afford one.
Until then, good luck finding toilet paper. May the odds be every in your favor.
